So yes, farewell to London!  Over the course of our time here we did see plenty of great bands and went to plenty of cool parties.  Unfortunately we’ve been living in a bona fide ghetto area (Seven Sisters), so the filthy setting in a violent atmosphere set the tone for our daily lives.  Catching the tube and changing at Kings Cross at peak hour twice a day, being pushed into a Northern Line carriage by hundreds of dead-eyed suits, was at best “undignified”, and the world’s seemingly longest winter didn’t help matters. 
Of course, there was plenty of good to balance out the harsh, and not just the bands and the parties, but the point is our time here is over for the near future and I’m looking forward to hitting The Netherlands. 

Right now Kong and I are working full steam on the debut Shiv-r album.  This is our main focus now and the music’s sounding nice & dark.  It will take a bit of time to get settled in The Netherlands but it won’t take long to set up my music-space again so the album progress won’t be too hindered.  At this rate we should be finished the writing process by the end of the year. 

My next post should be from Amsterdam…

First up we went to The Netherlands for Summer Darkness festival.  It’s like a mini-WGT, but set in the beautiful town of Utrecht.  Here are a few (non-gothy) shots of the town:

Utrecht, Holland.  August 2008.  Photos by Straylight & Virul3nt.

On August 16th, we went to Tallinn, Estonia, to play a gig with my other band The Crystalline Effect.  We were supporting Hocico.  It was a brilliant gig…there were about 220 payers in a really cool theatre-venue.  Hocico are one of my favourite bands and it was great to meet them, and I was pleased to find that they are pleasant and non-pretentious guys too.  I think they’re one of the best live bands around, at least in this scene. 
Here’s some shots of the city of Tallinn:

Tallinn, Estonia.  August 2008.  Photos by Straylight & Virul3nt.

The next day, 17th August, we went to Riga, Latvia, for another gig in support of Hocico.  This time the venue was a lot bigger, and there were at least 350 people through the door.   There was a steel barrier in front of the stage with people up against it for our set.  Awesome party… 
Some shots of Riga:

Riga, Latvia.  August 2008.  Photos by Straylight & Virul3nt. 

After Riga, we continued on to Budapest, Hungary, for another Crystalline Effect gig, this time in support of Snog.  We were driven from the airport to the venue, all through barron industrial landscapes, and were too tired to take photos anyway, so no photoset from Budapest.  After soundcheck we did a photoshoot for a local website.  It was a pretty bad gig for us; I had a bad feeling from the start, and there were only about 60 payers.  After our set I went backstage and drank until the room span, and was horrendously hungover the next day at the airport on my way back to London. 

The following weekend we were at Infest, UK.  We met some fucking great people in August and saw some damn cool stuff.  The partying continues…:)

Photos by Virul3nt & Straylight

At this point in the year the sun rose at 8am and set before 4.  I’m incredibly glad we snapped these photos at the time though because the persistent fog was quite beautiful.  I particularly dug the effect of looking at a bridge over the Thames and not seeing the other side, or office towers disappearing vertically into grey. 

London is a modern city but it doesn’t have much in the way of skyscrapers.  Canary Wharf is the closest thing I’ve found to a high-rise area, but the buildings seem capped at about 20 storeys.  Canary Wharf is also more of a dedicated business park than a Central Business District, and it’s also under heavy construction and is very new, so there’s no sense of culture or being lived-in. 
For that sense of inner-city culture where you feel a mix of business, entertainment, residents and the grime of street-essense, Soho fits the purpose nicely.  I’ll post a photo-set of Soho soon.

Canary Wharf, London

Photo credits: Virul3nt & Straylight

This is the Lloyds building in central London.  It was designed by Richard Rogers and the style of architecture is called Technoism, which pertains to the service elements being placed on the exterior of the building.  Apparantly the Londoners hated this building when it came out in the late 70’s for this strong aesthetic, but the building is quite amazing to see in reality. 

It sits in a space surrounded by other buildings of similar stature, so the Lloyds building unfortunately doesn’t particularly impact upon the London skyline.  There’s also nothing in the way of a public space opening up to this building, as opposed to Paris’ Pompidou Centre by the same architect and in the same Technoism style, which opens into a large public space. 

Pompidou Centre, Paris

The Lloyds building gives a futuristic or at least forward-looking feeling because it’s not a public attraction, but an example of a functional building in an alternative style of architecture. 

Photo Credit: Virul3nt & Pdeathfaerie